I know, I know. I’m behind on writing. It’s not because I haven’t been thinking–just not writing. It is summertime and things have both slowed down and sped up.
One of my favorite summer activities is going to the movies. It satisfies both my love of nostalgia (watching great flicks at the Paramount Theatre downtown on a hot, summer afternoon as a kid) and my love of great storytelling. The movie, for better or worse, is our culture’s primary source of storytelling. We all gather around with our bushel basket of popcorn for the story to unfold. We must be hard-wired to hear stories in community, like gathering around a campfire or stage. Since there is a burn-ban in Central Texas, the closest thing to a campfire becomes the well-refrigerated cinema.
It’s hard turn off the lens of “Child & Family Minister” and even more challenging to just watch the story for what it is, and not look for imbedded poetry. And yet, that is where we all connect with the story–at the level of the soul in community with other souls. I’d like to offer some observations and recommendations of three summer blockbusters:
UP: I think the storytellers at Pixar are masterful. They have transcended the children’s genre of animation, both in their short and feature films, to wrestle with existential limits with humor and gentleness. UP is no exception, but very different than many of their other films. It is about an old man, near the end of his life. During the film, we see his life unfold and a beautiful relationship with his wife. This element of the story was especially poignant and made me aware of my own context in that place. I was holding hands with my husband of twenty years in a theatre we had been to in high-school. On the other side of me, was a young couple we would refer to as “daters” (with an eye-roll.) The old man is wrestling with the threat of freedom: some of it being taken from him and the freedom he had traded a long time ago for what we know as “responsibility.” He conjures some remaining spirit of childhood, aided by a helium tank, balloons and a Boy Scout. In a beautifully symbolic act, he sets his house afloat with balloons, bound for South America and a persistent childhood fantasy. He wants it all: the dream of freedom and the safety of home. The most beautiful image was a choice between reaching out for a new responsibility he found or holding tight to his old dream and old house about to float away. It was like the Parable of the Great Pearl–he traded everything, even his house, for the great pearl. Go–and take tissues.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: Okay, I’ll admit it–I’m a huge fan. We waited to see this one until my little one was at camp, but then saw it twice in three days. (sheepish grin) What I love most about Harry Potter is on the surface it seems like a story of good on one side and evil on the other. I wonder if it is really closer to describe it as the good and evil, saint and sinner, that exists in all of us. (I know, I’m waxing Lutheran.) The dichotomy is ever present in this sixth film. Every character, even Voldemort and Dumbledore, unfold as one who posesses good and bad qualities. I wonder, too, if this was a story of baptism. Maybe not the “white-dress and promises” Baptism–but the baptism we live in. Harry, time and time again, plunges his face in the penseive, searching for meaning in the shared memory of the community. And then the scene of Harry and Dumbledore in the cave, a font surrounded by water, that is afloat in death and yet the answers they seek. Living in our baptism is that daily dying of our old self and being born into a new life. Like the saint and sinner existing in the same person, Baptism cannot bring life without death. The poignant scene of the Hogwarts community pointing their wands to the deathmask in the night sky also reminded me of baptism or even closer, the Godly Play Baptism lesson. Each of us bears the Light in the world, and yet the Light is brighter when gathered in community. When will the 7th movie come out???
Year One: Yes, I saw this. It is hilarious! Hilarious! Don’t take your children. We took our fourteen-year-old and I nearly broke a rib trying to suppress the laughter while sitting beside her. It is irreverent. It has little to no poetry. I’d like to throw-out the shred of theology it has. Did I mention it was hilarious?